Nevermore. Rolf Boldrewood
diverging degrees of elevation and latitude. It had been severe beyond the usual average, wild and tempestuous. But now, all suddenly the delicious warmth of the first summer months made itself felt. Day after day witnessed the riotous growth of pasture and herbage, the blooming of flowerets before the joyous sorcery of a southern spring. Their path lay through the primeval woodland, bordered by an emerald carpet studded with flower-jewels and redolent with balsamic forest odours. As the shadows lengthened and the birds' notes sounded clear and sweet through the evening stillness, the girl's voice, as she told of wild rides and solitary experiences in their mountain home, had a strangely soft and caressing tone.
CHAPTER VII
Following closely upon this little episode, a fresh discovery in Number Six demonstrated to Lance Trevanion that whatever else was raw, unfurnished, and disagreeable in Australia, the colony of Victoria generally, and Growlers' Gully, in the district of Ballarat, particularly, were the easiest places to make fortunes in, out of a book of fairy tales. Each week the yield of the claim grew richer, the balance at the bank to the credit of Trevanion and party became larger. So imposing was it that Lance seriously thought of selling his share in the claim to his mate, even if he lost a thousand or two by it. Jack Polwarth was a good fellow, and what, indeed, did a little money matter any more than an odd handful of precious stones to Sinbad in the valley of diamonds? He would be at home with his friends in, say, half a year. That is if he returned by India, took a look at the Himalayas, saw Calcutta and Madras; or why not viâ Honolulu, getting by heart the new world, including the Garden of Eden as exhibited in the isles of the southern main, before reappearing triumphant in the old. What would his father say now? Where would be his cousin Estelle's misgivings, that unswerving friend and lady-love whose letters had been as constant as her heart? What a heavenly change would it be once more to the ineffable beauty and refinement of English society after the rude environment of a goldfield, the primitive civilisation of an Australian colony, but so few years emerged from the primeval wilderness.
It was with a sort of sob or gasp that he realised the dream-picture on which he allowed his thoughts, a rare indulgence, to dwell. And after all why should he not carry out his purpose? Why indeed? Strong and unbending in matters of need and pressure, a certain indolence, an occasional tendency to irresolution, formed a portion of his character which often delayed prompt action and permitted opportunity to pass by. The loitering life he lived at present, a central figure, so to speak, amid admiring associates and envious adventurers, was pleasant enough in its way. Then the old old temptation! It would give him, yes, undoubtedly it would, a certain amount of pain and uneasiness to break off finally with Kate Lawless.
Tameless in spirit as she was, reckless of speech and fierce of mood when her ungovernable temper was aroused, Kate Lawless could be wonderfully soft and alluring, like all such women, when the tender fit took her. There was then a child-like simplicity and abandon which caused her to seem, and, indeed, temporarily to be, a different woman. She resembled one of those rare psychological studies – which are indeed scientifically authenticated – who lead a dual existence. For no two individuals could be more unlike than Kate Lawless in one of her 'tantrums' (as her brothers familiarly expressed it) and the same woman when the paroxysm was over, imploring forgiveness and lavishing caresses on the object of her causeless resentment. That there are such feminine enigmas no student of humanity will deny. But with all her powers of fascination, she was so uncertain in her mood that she caused Lance Trevanion the most serious doubts whether she reciprocated the affection which he had been repeatedly on the point of avowing for her. Sometimes she was especially friendly, full of fun and vivacity, taking long rides through the wild forest tracks with him, on which occasions she would astonish him by the way in which she would ride at stiff timber or gallop adown the rock-strewn ranges, breast high with fern, daring him to follow her, and shouting to imaginary cattle. At these times her whole aim and endeavour appeared to be to attract and subjugate him. At other times she was cold and repellent to such a degree that he felt inclined to break with her for ever, and to congratulate himself on being quit of so strange and unsatisfactory a friendship.
He had not told himself, indeed, that he was prepared to marry her. Democratic as he had become in many of his opinions, and conscious, self-convicted, of falsehood and treachery to his cousin Estelle, he yet in his cooler moments shrank from the idea of marrying an uneducated girl of humble extraction, reared in a wilderness and bearing traces of a savage life, beautiful exceedingly, and despite of her wilful and untamed nature, wildly fascinating, as he confessed her to be. Thus swayed by opposing currents, his heart and brain drifted aimlessly to and fro for a space, while still a strange and unreal tinge of romance was given to his life by the ever onward and favouring current of the golden tide.
Although matters had not progressed sufficiently far on the pathway to civilisation at Growlers' to establish a claim to society in any conventional acceptation, yet was there a rudimentary germ or nucleus. One or two of the Government officials were married. There was a clergyman who had a couple of daughters, energetic, intelligent damsels, who had adapted themselves with much tact to their unusual surroundings. At the camp there were gatherings of the officials of various grades – police, gold commissioners, magistrates, and so forth, with a few of the more aristocratic adventurers whose names were known, and who were armed with introductions. It would be inaccurate to deny that there was a little loo now and then, also whist, of which the points were certainly not sixpenny ones. To these rational expedients of passing the time, which, when there was no actual business on hand, occasionally lagged, Mr. Trevanion would have been a welcome addition; good-looking, well-bred, and – more than all – exceptionally fortunate as a miner. But to all these hints and suggestions he – with a certain perverseness difficult to account for, and which was remembered in days to come – obstinately turned a deaf ear. More than one hint – well meant – was thrown out touching the expediency of being 'so thick with those Lawlesses.' Of course one could understand a young fellow being attracted by a handsome lively girl like Kate Lawless. In those wild days every man was a law unto himself, and revelled in his freedom. Yet was there not lacking, even in that mêlée of rude adventurers and unprecedented social conditions, more than one kindly adviser. There were men who knew the world – European and Australian – well and thoroughly. From them he received warnings and advice. But he repelled all friendly aid, and obstinate with the perverse intractability of the Trevanion nature, disregarded them all.
Beside outside acquaintance, in addition to Hastings and his mate Jack Polwarth – who with his honest-hearted good little wife never ceased to disapprove and to keep up a persistent warfare, so to speak, against the Lawlesses – he had a friend within the fortress who more than once gave him a warning, had he cared to avail himself of it.
Quiet and reserved as Tessie (or Esther) Lawless had always shown herself, he had never fallen into the error of mistaking her for a commonplace girl. Without the showy qualities of her cousin Kate, she gave token from time to time of having been better educated and differently brought up from the others. She was always treated with a certain amount of respect, and, even in Kate's most irritating moods, as she rarely replied, so was she the only one of the party who escaped her scathing tongue.
She never appeared to seek opportunity to gain Lance's attention, though when she did speak there always appeared to be some underlying reason for her remarks. One of her characteristics was a steady disapproval of the sharp tricks and double dealings of which her cousin often boasted, and which Lance did not generally comprehend. He supposed them, indeed, to be among the acknowledged customs of the country, and not considered to be illegal or discreditable.
'They are nothing of the sort,' she was accustomed to say, with considerable emphasis. 'They are theft and robbery – call them what you will; they are certain to bring all concerned to the gaol at some time or other. If people don't mind that, nothing I can say will have any effect.'
'You'll have to marry a parson,' Ned Lawless would reply. 'What do you think of the young chap that preached to us in the flat last Sunday? Why, half the squatters began by a little "duffing." Nobody thinks the worse of a man for that.'
'If they're caught they go to gaol,' replied the uncompromising Tessie. 'Then they're criminals, and can never look any one in the face again! And serve them right too in a country like this, where the gold fairly runs out of the ground into people's pockets.'
They